What Are Keywords and How to Use Them?

What Are Keywords?

Any word or phrase typed into Google (or another search engine) that helps describe the content of a website is referred to as a keyword.

Keywords are used by website owners and SEO professionals to optimise a website’s content in the hopes of ranking high in Google’s search results and generating traffic.

A keyword is anything typed into a search engine, whether it’s a single word or a phrase. Here’s an example of a search result for the term “what plants grow in the desert.”

Why Are Keywords Important?

Keywords are important since they inform Google about your website’s content. When a user conducts a search query, relevant material for those keywords can be presented, resulting in traffic for you.

If a page on your website ranks first in a search, the term for which it ranks functions as a free source of website traffic for you.

If you have a marketing budget, on the other hand, you can use pay-per-click (PPC) ads with specific keywords to rank above organic results. Advertisers bid for space at the top of a results page for certain terms, which is how Google Ads works.

If you’re marketing a car dealership, a user searching for “toyota for sale in San Jose” is most likely looking for a car in the region.

Not all keywords, however, are made equal. There are four advertising at the top of the results for the phrase “loans,” but none for “Types of plants that live in the desert.”

You’ll need to identify certain keywords to target for your website when you construct a marketing strategy for it. Before you can start constructing your marketing strategy, you’ll need to undertake some keyword research.

Search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing can help you achieve high rankings naturally, and you can use the remaining keywords to fund advertising through Google Ads.

How to Find Keywords

The majority of individuals have a general concept of the keywords they want to rank for in Google. However, it is impossible to know all that individuals look for. That’s why doing some keyword research to come up with new keyword ideas is beneficial.

There are several options for doing this, but the simplest is to use a keyword research tool.

The majority of these tools function in the same way. Seed keywords are a few broad keywords linked to your industry that you enter, and the tool returns some related keyword ideas.

Let’s imagine you’re in the business of selling headphones online. “Headphones,” “earbuds,” “earphones,” and “beats” could be some of your seed keywords.

Let’s enter those into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and look at one of the keyword ideas reports.

How to Use Keywords

The best approach to use keywords is to create a campaign around them. That’s where SEO, content marketing, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising come in.

Making sure your website content—page names, text, categories, and subsections of webpages—are all written in the same way your audience types their search engine searches is one of the simplest methods to employ keywords.

As a result, when your web pages appear in search results, they will reach online clients who used the same terms or phrases as you.

However, before you get started with any of this, you’ll need to undertake keyword research to ensure that you’re writing the correct content for your sector and that it will appeal to buyers.

Keyword research is the process of determining which keywords to target for your website.

Keep the following in mind when you’ve finished your keyword research to guarantee you’re following best practises:

• Avoid keyword stuffing
• Use keywords naturally
• Find long tail keywords with reasonable competition
• Learn how to place keywords
• Use keyword research tools

Learn How to Put Keywords in the Right Places

When writing content, you have a lot of options for where to insert your keywords.

While your core keyword will almost certainly appear in the body of your text, there are other places you may use it to assist Google figure out what your website is about.

When keywords are incorporated into content, it becomes considerably more powerful:

• Page Titles
• Title Tags
• Meta Descriptions
• Alt Tags
• Headers

Choosing SEO Keywords vs. PPC Keywords

Your internet approach and reputation are shaped by the keywords you choose as your target keywords.

Here are some general recommendations to keep in mind when searching for keywords for SEO or PPC campaigns.

Here are some considerations to consider while you choose your keywords:

• What kind of information or webpages do you have on your site that would satisfy a searcher’s needs?
• What words would you use to find that information?
• How would you describe your product to someone who isn’t familiar with it?

Actions to Take:

Check Google Search Console for your site’s current search referrals and build on them.

Look for low-hanging fruit, such as long tail keywords with clear intent and little competition.

Consider how you would search for your website to help you define keywords for SEO, content, and PPC campaigns.

Each landing page or blog post in your campaign should have one major target keyword and two to five related target keywords.

What to Avoid:

Avoid using terms that have many meanings.

If you’re not a prominent player in your market, don’t anticipate immediate results with high-competition keywords.

Create landing pages that are similar in terms of keywords and intent.

Conclusion

Understanding how keywords function can have a significant impact on your marketing plan. There’s nothing your online business can’t achieve now that you know how to use them to your advantage.

But don’t try to accomplish everything yourself; you’ll need some aid.

You’re already on your way if this post has answered your queries regarding keywords and given you some pointers on how to perform keyword research.